


honey, there is no right way

by 5ambreakdown



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby angst, First Kiss, M/M, david freaks out a little bit but it's all okay, i barely reread this i'm so sorry for mistakes, these are such shitty tags lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ambreakdown/pseuds/5ambreakdown
Summary: in which the author uses lip balm as a plot device
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose
Comments: 9
Kudos: 101





	honey, there is no right way

**Author's Note:**

> weird break, yes, but i really liked this idea so i paused on my longer works. hope you enjoy!!
> 
> title from "someone new" from hozier

Things at the store are going good. Great, actually. Opening day gave them a great start, and business hadn’t declined as much as Patrick’s most generous projections suggested in the weeks following. Patrick, ever erring on the side of caution, is optimistic that their prospects are only brighter from here on out.

If Alexis could stop stealing all the lip balm, that is.

“Seriously, David, when could she have used twelve different lip balms _this week?_ ” Patrick stands with his hands on his hips, staring down at the offending tubes and tins lying on the front counter. 

“You tell me! I was in the back all day yesterday trying to figure out Nathan’s contract and sort through the box of rejected ceramics Bev gave us.” David is currently pacing back and forth between the counter and far window. “That little wench is going to drive us out of business.”

If neither of them mention that Patrick also found his way into the back while David was working, muttering something about a missing box of hand cream in the cramped space, well, that isn’t important. 

Patrick comes around the corner, lightly wrapping his hands around David’s wrists to still his fervent gesticulations. “Hey, David, it’s going to be fine.” And _oh_ his voice is much softer than it was seconds ago. “The store isn’t going to fail because of twelve lip balms.” With that tone and the small space between them, David isn’t given much of a choice but to stare back into those wide eyes. So what if his lungs stop working?

“Um, yes, well.” God he was really fucking this up. A completely normal, under control crush on his business partner slash friend really doesn’t need to make itself so obvious. This is why he shouldn’t be forced to face anyone only two coffees in. “Well!” David says, definitely finding his footing and not at all thinking how nice Patrick’s cologne smells. “We just shouldn’t allow Alexis in the store anymore. We can do that, right? Ban her?”

Patrick laughs, and it has no right sounding so beautiful. _Get it together, dumbass._

“No, unfortunately we can’t ban her, especially since she’s agreed to help us get started on the website and social media for free.”

David huffs, only vaguely aware that Patrick’s hands are still wrapped around his wrists. He does need his arms, though, if he wants to properly bitch about his sister, so he reluctantly frees his wrists from Patrick’s grasp, probably just imagining the slight squeeze right before he let go. 

“She can’t be left alone by the products anymore, though.”

“That sounds like a fair deal.” 

“And we can’t sell those lip balms now,” David says with a small sigh. “So we might as well just take them.” He walks back over to the counter and pops one - okay three - into his pocket. He pauses. “Why did she try three of each?”

“Quality control,” Patrick replies plainly.

“Right.”

Joining David at the counter, hardly any space between their shoulders (not that David is paying attention), Patrick inspects one of the vanilla lavender tins. “You know, we really shouldn’t be selling products that we haven’t… thoroughly tested.”

David hums in agreement. Then, realizing they are actually trying to run a business, says, “What time is your meeting with Taylor today?”

“Uhh,” Patrick hastily wipes the gel on his lips so he can pull his phone out of his pocket. “Dammit, thirty minutes. I should get going.”

“Mhm yep. Do you have their-”

“Papers, yep. In my car.”

“Okay good.” It’s difficult for David to stifle his amusement at Patrick bustling around, throwing his coat on the counter and tugging his toque on his head, but Patrick is far too busy to notice. David would help, but he can’t help it if Patrick looks this cute all flustered, lip balm spread unevenly across his lips. 

Standing back next to David, he pats his pockets, mentally accounting for everything. 

“All good?”

Patrick sighs. “Yes. Wait.” He tries spreading the gel so it’s at least even across his lips, but it’s no use seeing how much he put on. “I put too much of the lip stuff on, can you-”

“Yeah.”

David goes to reach for the tissue box they keep behind the counter, but is stopped by Patrick’s hands grasped firmly on either side of his face. Before he can comprehend anything that is happening, because holy fuck Patrick’s hands are warm on his cheeks and it feels _nice,_ Patrick is surging forward and slotting his lips between David’s.

It’s by all means a chaste, closed-mouth kiss; but holy fucking shit David is hardly holding himself upright. Patrick’s lips are warm and sweet against his, the taste of green tea and pomegranate lingering from the tea he had that morning. Sparks travel their way through his chest to his hands itching to grab hold to something. 

Patrick pulls himself back far too soon, a grin on his face as he lets go of his hold on David’s face. “There we go,” he says before grabbing his things off the counter besides them, walking towards the door and seemingly unaffected. “I’ll be back in time to help close up!” he shouts over his shoulder as he walks out the door, leaving David standing stock still in his place.

For something lasting not even three seconds, it has no right feeling as groundbreaking as _that._ But. But Patrick kissed David. Patrick _kissed_ David, and David has no less than a million incoherent thoughts swirling through his head because _that_ was fucking earth shattering and Patrick just waltzed out the fucking door like it was a normal fucking Tuesday. Fuck. 

He stands by the counter, mouth gaping, incapable of moving. He manages to raise his fingers to his lips, delicately touching them like he’s in goddamn middle school behind the math building. 

“You’re right, David, you’re a customer service genius.”

Stevie’s entrance breaks David from his trance, his eyes snapping towards her, his face blanching like the time Moira caught him in her wig room when he was seven.

She stills a few feet from him, taking in the sight. “You good there?” she asks, uncharacteristically not without concern.

Fuck.

“I think Patrick kissed me?” _Fuck_ he didn’t mean for that to come out.

If he wasn’t on the verge of hyperventilating, he would have caught the corners of her lips curling up before she forced her expression into something more neutral. “You think?”

“Yes, Stevie!” His arms decide to work again, so he throws them up in the way, expressing the jarring turn his life decided to take before he even got to eat lunch. “I think Patrick kissed me.”

“David,” she says his name with far more patience than he can handle right now. “I think you’re familiar with the concept of kissing, so you should know that it’s not really an ‘I think’ sort of thing.”

“Okay, well, Alexis _sampled_ the lip balm and now I know how soft Patrick’s lips are!”

“Sorry, just having a little trouble following. Because Alexis stole some product, you and Patrick made out?”

“We didn’t make out, exactly,” he trails off, looking down to twist at his rings.

“I see. Well, if you’re done with all this,” she gestures broadly to David’s entire self, “I need booze.”

“You bought two bottle yesterday, why do you need more?”

“Well I also need soap, but you’re going through something and I’m going to need alcohol to put up with it.”

David huffs out, shaking his hands as he does so. Now he has to process the fact that his life will never be the same because he’s felt Patrick’s breath against his lips with Stevie egging him on from her perch on the counter. 

On the counter. Where the vanilla lavender lip balm sits, lid left slightly ajar from when Patrick had to rush off. Patrick kissed him because he had too much of it on his lips, his very soft, very warm lips that have now been on David’s lips. In this very spot, David found out how Patrick’s callused fingertips shot ripples through his entire body.

He really needs to get laid or get himself in check because there is no reason a single peck of lips should have this effect on him. But he likes that it did that, that Patrick did that. Which is really fucking weird because David’s kissed like a thousand people and not one of them has left him like this. Kissing was always the preamble, leading to something more and better. But kissing Patrick felt like better. David’s pretty sure Patrick could be his next thousand kisses with nothing else and David would be happy with that. And, god, that was hardly a kiss. David so desperately wants to know what else that mouth can do, but fucking hell, it would probably break him. It would probably be worth it.

“David, you gotta stop stroking the lip balm like that before I call someone.”

“Hm? Oh.” He looks down and, yep, he’s stroking the lip balm tin reverently. 

“You’ve got it bad.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly before he can stop himself.

“Oops. Gotta go,” Stevie says suddenly.

That’s fucking suspicious.

“What about your booze?”

“Don’t need it.”

He barks out a laugh. “Since when? If you really have to go, I’ll bring some over to your place tonight.”

“Since now, and I think you’ll be busy tonight.” She winks. The woman _winks_ and walks across the store to the door.

“What the fuck just happened,” David whispers to himself just as the bell jingles when Stevie pulls it open.

“Hi, Patrick!”

“Hey, Stevie.”

_Fuck._

David braves turning around to face Patrick, who definitely should not be here right now, holding open the door for Stevie with a look in his eye that says he knows David was freaking out, no thanks to Stevie. 

“Hey,” David croaks out.

“Hi,” Patrick says softly, not at all like a man who grabbed David by the face and kissed him with the confidence of David after he won with his first pull of the Basic Instinct slot machine. “Taylor called, they had to cancel.”

With Stevie gone, David doesn’t even have time to worry about Patrick regretting kissing him because Patrick locks the door behind him and moves to stand very close to David before he can even pretend to care about their vendors right now.

“Can we, um, talk in the back?” he asks sheepishly, a tint in his cheeks that David is 83% certain has nothing to do with the cold.

“Mhm, yes. Yes.”

David walks to the back room, feeling Patrick trail behind him. And since David has no authority over his body anymore, he stops just barely into the room and spins around to face a slightly startled - but definitely amused - Patrick. 

Fondly Amused Patrick is quickly, albeit feebly, replaced by Vendor Contracts Patrick, on a mission and serious about it.

“So, um,” Patrick starts, looking sheepishly and not quite meeting David’s gaze.

The blush rises on his cheeks again and it’s simultaneously the cutest and sexiest thing David has seen in his entire goddamn life and he needs Patrick’s mouth somewhere, anywhere, on his body _now._ Patrick rubs a hand on the back of his neck, and David really does try to keep his gaze on Patrick’s eyes, but his forearms are right there and David is thinking of everything they could do to him, every way they could take him apart and put him back together.

Patrick blows out a breath. Despite everything, or because of it, David braces for this worse. “I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, especially at work and without checking with you first but I, um- I really hope you don’t regret the, uh, kiss, David, because I really like you and, god, I should have just asked you out like a normal person-”

“Patrick?” God it’s cute when Patrick’s flustered.

“Yes, David.” David’s about to throw himself at the man because his eyes are wide and looking at him _like that,_ like David is something to be revered.

“Can I kiss you?”

“God, yes. Please.”

And that’s all David needs to launch himself into Patrick’s chest and wrap his arms around his shoulders. Patrick’s arms find his way to his waist, and their laughs are cut short by their lips meeting. David thought a chaste peck was enough to undo him, but holy fuck he would die right then and there if Patrick wasn’t somehow holding him together, too.

David has to stifle a whine when Patrick pulls back just enough to rest their foreheads together. “So that’s a raving review of the lip balms, then?”

“You fucking-”

“Okay, David.”

Patrick moves a hand from his waist to the back of his neck, pulling him back in for another kiss. 

And if they don’t unlock the door until just before they’re supposed to close, it was a slow business day anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> against my better judgement, find me on tumblr! [@5ambreakdown](https://5ambreakdown.tumblr.com/)


End file.
